Ideas in Photography

In the country of Art World, in the great State of Photoland, lies the green and pleasant Vale of Cameraclubville, surrounded by picturesque though forbidding mountains. Cameraclubville is populated by courteous folk, mannered, calm and serene, much given to praise of each others’ accomplishments, in the way that supermarket clerks

The other day, I was talking with a colleague about photographing places that have been photographed many times before. He wondered out aloud about finding innovative ways to represent that most photographed of all places, the Taj Mahal. He’s a good friend, so I let him in on a secret,

My European refugee parents had ambitions for their only child. Mother wanted a doctor, and bought me a stethoscope for my twelfth birthday. It provided an opportunity to examine my friends, boys and especially girls, able to give optimistic diagnoses except in the case of my friend Harry, with whom

So many photographers, or just people with cameras, seem to have an almost sexual obsession with recording petals and pistils, as though copying something intrinsically beautiful will somehow make them good photographers. It’s a lot like taking snapshots of pretty people and claiming on that basis to be a fine

We owe to composer, musicologist and satirist Peter Schickele our profound gratitude for having discovered his alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach, “the youngest and stupidest of the Bach children.” Quoting from memory, with appropriate apologies, “In an age when it was common for composers to steal musical ideas from each other,

David Hockney is a genius. To see his work in several media is to become deeply entwined in what Arthur Koestler, in his book The Act Of Creation, calls ‘the magic synthesis’- that intimate, lasting bond between an artist and the audience. It’s as profound as, for instance, the deliberate

I am not now, nor ever have been, a threat to the reputation of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I had climbed Table Mountain, then almost in my back yard, and the view of my birth city, Cape Town, and its harbor, from the elevation of 3,500 feet, was

By my third night in India, I was exhausted, though my entry had been gentled by calmer days in Nepal. After dinner I walked slowly back to my tent, and sat down heavily on the cot. I was in Pushkar for the annual camel fair, staying in the brightly colored

As a lad, I’d imagine riding my penny-farthing bicycle to the bakery, doffing my straw boater respectfully to posters of my Sovereign, H. M. Queen Victoria. Now I drive to the bakery in my silver-grey SUV, and to many other destinations that could not have been accomplished on my bike.

A song from Shakespeare’s As You Like It has followed me all these many years from my high school days far, far away. Its verses awaken annually in my mind with the sweet and affecting melancholy of colder weather. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As

A recent call for entries of seaside landscapes from the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain reminded me of a lonely, somewhat morose motor trip on the California coast. It was almost thirty years ago, and I was driving northward from San Francisco. I needed cheering up. Lovely views of

She said, “Pictures that need to be explained with words are fundamentally incomplete in themselves.” The last time I’d heard that was many years ago. The statement came from a “judge” at a camera club competition in Berkeley, California. At the time I thought the sentiment was questionable. In the

What is it with those guys? It’s always a guy. You’re busy working with your camera, and he, an authority, comes over and tells you you’re doing something wrong, or he has a better way of doing it. I was not aware that some people are able to invade our

A friend who is a fine, accomplished and well-published poet recently stopped by. She looked at one of the pictures on the dining room wall and said “Photoshop?” I said “Cerebrum.” Then I asked her what word processor she used to compose her poems. From her chastened look, I gathered

Humanity’s major preoccupation is with humanity. We are, so to speak, of the genus homo narcissus, and that describes much of our concerns. Portraiture is the natural result of the urge to record images of ourselves, in all manner of repose and activity. As Remy Saisselin wrote in Style, Truth

Twenty-five years ago I first saw the wall at Battery Mendell, a reinforced concrete gun emplacement, completed by 1905, to guard the entrance to San Francisco Bay. It is situated in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, north of the bridge. In the bright sunlight one could count the generations

She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I couldn’t avert my gaze for many minutes. Her eyes met and held mine for that entire time. I knew then that in the years to come, she would have an effect on my life and work. The red hair, those amazing blue eyes,

Earlier in my life, when I was much more engaged with politics and macro-economics, I was offered an executive position in the international department of a major bank. During the interview I was asked about my economic philosophy, particularly whether I tended to side with Milton Friedman of the Chicago